What The Solar Industry Forgot To Tell You!
By Paul Homewood
http://eandt.theiet.org/news/2015/jul/solar-independence-day.cfm
The solar industry has apparently been bragging about how much power it has been producing recently. Unfortunately, they seem to have forgotten to tell us the full story.
In overall terms, solar only generated 1.2% of UK’s electricity last year.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/electricity-section-5-energy-trends
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-trends-section-6-renewables
But worse still, in Q1, when demand is at its highest, solar only provided 0.51%.
And if that was not bad enough, when solar power does ramp up on sunny days, it simply provides problems for the grid, as this presentation from the National Grid earlier in the year showed:
At its peak around 2.00pm, solar was contributing about 14% of the UK’s total demand on 11th April, which would be around half the peak in winter months. This brought many problems with it, which required these actions from the National Grid:
So two additional conventional power stations were brought online for voltage management and 2,500 MW of wind ‘bought off’ (i.e. constrained) to make room for solar.
According to the Renewable Energy Foundation, “constraint payment records show that payments to wind topped £500,000 on that day. Not all of that will have been caused by solar, but NG’s figures suggest that a large part of it was so.”
Nobody with more than one brain cell would design an electricity network in this way.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
July & (virtually) the height of summer.
Where I am, solar will have generated sweet FA today.
The good news is, the constant drizzle will have washed some of the accumulated dust off local panels, to help achieve their promised efficacy.
You’ll have to get your AA batteries out!
The IET and their E&T mag are among the biggest cheerleaders for ruinables and the biggest scaremongerers about climate change and shale gas. Michael Faraday would have resigned in disgust like I did.
With the visit of the Sainted Obama to Kenya I did a bit of research on its electricity supply. The “greens” have persuaded Obama to force solar on them, which is next to useless, and does not provide what they need. No wonder they look to China for salvation:
http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/07/23/425376544/obama-thinks-solar-power-will-boost-kenya-kenyans-arent-so-sure
Sheesh, now the green slime have forced the Kenyans (who need to massively increase their electricity consumption) to CUT their carbon emissions from their current puny levels:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/24/kenya-pledges-to-cut-carbon-emissions-30-by-2030
Good article
And they only want $40 billion!
That’s ok, Obummer will transfer it from the US tax-payers.
You can almost bet that was discussed.
No problemo. !!
Well it’s not cutting from their current levels, although to a casual reader the article does give that impression. It’s cutting from “business as usual”, in other words their energy consumption will still increase with GDP but at a slower rate.
Without knowing the details, it may turn out not be an onerous target, because Africa currently has a very high carbon intensity per unit GDP, and much of the world (including Africa) reduced its carbon intensity by 20% between the 1990s and 2000s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_intensity#Carbon_intensity_of_regions
Solar Independence Day – a day where we chuck the solar c**p back and use on good old reliable hydrocarbons. What’s not to like…? Oh they mean a day of intermittent energy that fries birds? Ah….
Reblogged this on Tallbloke's Talkshop and commented:
It would be a joke if it wasn’t so expensive.
My old Maths teacher use to use the phrase “hasn’t got the brains of a raspberry seed”.
Feel free to use it, but when referring to the DEC it might be better to claim they do have the brains of a raspberry seed.
Paul: Have you thought of sending this to Amber Rudd who seems keen on expanding solar as much as possible on roofs and brownfield sites (even if she is less keen on ground-mounted panels)? It’s not too difficult for even a lay person to understand, but perhaps a version in words of one syllable so that she might understand the implications of her policy.
Based on what we know at the moment we will be through the C based fuels in 200 odd years. I have no problem with governments trying to encourage the development of alternatives but why on earth any government would encourage solar north of 50degr is beyond me. For 6 months there is basically no generation and of the other 6 you will be lucky if you get decent generation half the time. Total waste of money in my view.
Water is a great renewable, wind is not bad but bulk storage is required to make it relevant. Bio is baloney. Back to the nuclear drawing board for reliability. Although Methane hydrates show a lot of promise and could keep C in the mix, it won’t help all countries becoming energy independent ( as far as that is needed).
But whatever it is going to be we have to be realistic and start looking at it now to be ready when C is finished as energy source.
+1000
outtheback: Pretend you are in 1900 and predict what energy sources we will be using. No nuclear because we didn’t know what that was. Wood was a major source of energy, along with some fossil fuels, hydro, small-scale geothermal. Windmills were used only in remote areas for electricity, where the grid could not reach. People did not expect there to be a grid. Cars—we did have a variety of fuels in cars but it’s unlikely you would have predicted that cars would become THE form of transportation. Railroads were the primary way of transporting goods—Atlas Shrugged followed that idea. Would you have imagined we could go to the moon? For real, not just a dream or a passing thought?
It’s not really possible to plan 200 years int the future, not to mention the fact that peak oil was already supposed to have occured according to many, many in the energy business. And yet there is oil and we keep finding more and more and pushing that “out of oil date” more and more years into the future.
People really didn’t change fuels to “save the future from whatever shortage”. They did so because a viable alternative came along. How does one plan for a viable alternative that is completely unknown at the moment?
“why on earth any government would encourage solar north of 50degr is beyond me.”
It’s religious devotion…worship of the earth. No price is too high, no sacrifice too great (for other people to make, that is). Paganism redux.
By 2014 European Union countries had invested approximately €1 trillion in large scale Renewable Energy installations. This has provided a nameplate electrical generating capacity of about 216 Gigawatts, nominally about ~22% of the total European generation needs of about 1000 Gigawatts. The actual measured output by 2014 has been 38 Gigawatts or 3.8% of Europe’s electricity requirement, at a capacity factor of ~18% overall.
However Renewable Energy production is dependent on the seasons, local weather conditions and the rotation of the earth, day and night.
So the Renewable Energy contribution to the electricity supply grid is inevitably erratic, intermittent and non-dispatchable. It is therefore much less useful than dispatchable sources of electricity, which can be engaged whenever necessary to match demand and maintain grid stability. That 3.8% Renewable Energy contribution to the grid is often not available when needed and obversely its mandatory use can cause major grid disruption if the Renewable Energy contribution is suddenly over abundant.
Accounting for capacity factors the capital cost of these Renewable Energy installations has been about €29billion / Gigawatt. That capital cost should be compared with conventional gas-fired electricity generation costing about €1billion / Gigawatt.
The whole 1000 Gigawatt fleet of European electricity generation installations could have been replaced with lower capital cost Gas-fired installations for the €1trillion of capital costs already expended on Renewable Energy in Europe.
In spite of their apparently being no costs for fuel, Renewable Energy installations can still cost up to 2 – 5 times as much to operate and maintain as conventional Gas Fired plant.
By Government and EU diktat, these costs have been extracted by extra charges imposed on utility bills throughout Europe. This is a very regressive form of taxation imposing more burdens on poorer people whilst leaving wealthier people who are able to pay less affected. It is also invisible in Government balance sheet as an industry imposition on consumers.
That has already lead to significant fuel poverty throughout Europe.
Increased energy costs are impacting on European industries with many major corporations seeking more congenial manufacturing locations outside Europe to the detriment of the European economies.
It is also questionable whether the Renewable Energy industry, when viewed “from cradle to grave”, including manufacturing, installation, connection and demolition effects, does in fact reduce CO2 emissions to any significant extent. The CO2 saved may never exceed the CO2 emissions generated to erect the total installation, and at a maximum the use of Renewable technologies only amounts to about a 4% saving in CO2 emissions,
The USA has made significant CO2 emissions reductions over the past few decades by replacing Coal Fired generation with Gas Fired electricity generation with the feedstock provided by the fracking revolution. It is estimated that using natural gas for electricity generation as opposed coal burning saves about 30% of CO2 emissions. This effect in the USA has been assessed to have been more effective means of CO2 emissions reduction than all actions worldwide arising from the Kyoto protocol.
The Renewable Energy industry could not exist without the Government mandated subsidies and preferential tariffs on which it depends. Therefore it is not a viable business proposition
Viewed from the point of view of the viability of a national electrical grid, Renewable Energy would never be part of the generating mix without its Government mandate and Government market interference.
A review of European renewables using renewable Industry data
https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/charting-renewable-energy-costs-and-performance-in-europe-2014/
edhoskins
Amber Rudd is doing a better job at DECC than I expected, but I wish you were the Secretary of State. Thank you for articulating better than I could have done my exact thoughts on this subject. Why so many people can’t see the blindingly obvious is beyond me.